Google, Apple, Samsung Among Golden Paw Award Winners for 2012

Award Categories

There are seven award categories in the Golden Paw Awards, including awards for most overrated and underrated products, as well as an award for the biggest game-changer.

SmartBear, which makes software quality and performance tools, polled hundreds of software developers and testers to come up with a ranking of the best—and worst—technology-related issues of 2012. The list culminated in SmartBear's first annual Golden Paw Awards, which look at the year's best and worst in software quality. Software professionals around the world voted for their favorites and their top failures of 2012. SmartBear, based in Beverley, Mass., started more than 10 years ago making test and performance tools and continued to build up its expertise to deliver the SmartBear Quality Anywhere Platform suite of tools. The Golden Paw Awards come in seven areas, featuring categories such as the "Best Thing Since Sliced Bread" award for the most overrated product, the "Spork" award for the most underrated product, and the "Titanic" award for the most epic tech fail. Some of the technologies cited in the awards include Microsoft's Windows 8 and the Surface tablet, as well as Google's Chromebook.